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17 July 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo iStock
The UFS initiated a new community engagement programme to help communities take charge of their lives.
The University of the Free State (UFS) is launching a new community engagement programme to help communities take charge of their lives during and after the national lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The E-Community Engagement Programme will run for the duration of the lockdown to ensure that the UFS continues to serve all people. This programme is one of more than 120 community development programmes and projects that the UFS is involved with this year.

Rev Billyboy Ramahlele, Director: Community Engagement, says this strategy is the result of the Institutional Transformation Plan, which seeks to deepen the university’s commitment towards the betterment of our communities by creating sustainable partnerships for development. “This programme is dedicated to assisting communities to take charge of their lives during and after this pandemic and will focus on sustainable livelihoods and family support”, he says.

With these community development programmes and projects, about 3 000 UFS students spend at least 127 000 hours per year engaging in 73 service-learning modules. This excludes the clinical work done by our medical and education students in the community through community-based education and inter-professional learning. The university’s 22 student volunteer associations play an important role in community development projects. Our academics and researchers contribute their intellectual resources through their involvement, teaching, and research in different aspects of community life.

The E-Community Engagement Programme refers to an alternative online/virtual community engagement platform aimed at facilitating continuously negotiated collaborations and partnerships between the UFS and the interest groups that it interacts with, aimed at building and exchanging the knowledge, skills, expertise, and resources required to develop and sustain society. Such alternative engagement stems from adapting physical face-to-face (f2f) community engagement to an e-environment. As a result of the uncertain state of restricted f2f engagement during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus of participation, dialogue, engaged learning, and teaching by university staff and students is on citizens actively participating in the development of their own lives and that of their surrounding communities.

Details of the E-Community Engagement Programme will soon be published on the UFS website, and will be presented on radio and online in partnership with Motheo FM, Mosupatsela FM, Kovsie FM, Mangaung Municipality, Towers of Hope, Princess Gabo Foundation, Rock Foundation, Bloemshelter, and all our faculties.


News Archive

Kovsies paint Bethlehem red!
2010-03-20

At the matric evening of the Secondary School Witteberg in Bethlehem were, from the left: Lebogang Motaung; Rozelle Venter; Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS; Ernest Bezuidenhout; Donald Motaung; and Mr Rudi Buys, Dean of Student Affairs at the UFS.
Photo: Lynda Greyling


“The learners of the High School Witteberg are a wonderful example of the quality of students that we can expect as first years here at Kovsies next year,” Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS) said last night during a matric evening attended by 121 Grade 12 learners and their parents in a packed hall at the Secondary School Witteberg in Bethlehem.

Prof. Jansen and his wife Grace, as well as some of his colleagues were guests of honour at the event.

“We want to make a difference in the lives of our students at Kovsies and we want to ensure that our students make a difference in a divided world. This is why I want each Grade 12 learner who is here tonight to come and study at the UFS,” he told the learners and their parents.

“The UFS is going to become the university in the country that is serious about quality. We want to draw the best students. Quality entails hard work. It is about perseverance and your commitment towards your studies. That is the type of students we want.”

“My door is open to our students and they have access to come and talk to me. I also regularly sit at different places on the campus and then invite students to come and talk to me. I want our students to feel at home here.”

“I also want our students to feel free to talk about the use of language at the UFS. We love Afrikaans, English and Sesotho and are not going to fight about language. We are going to develop the use of Afrikaans so that more students can speak it – and this also goes for English and Sesotho.”

Prof. Jansen said that Kovsie students had to be balanced students. “Our students must also excel in sport, art, etc., because the development of students who are properly prepared for the workplace is what we strive for as a tertiary institution. Therefore we are going to establish an office that assists students in their career preparation and will offer students internships so that they can come into contact with leading firms in the commerce and industry sectors.”

“However, we shall also actively enhance our students’ learning experience and therefore we are going to send a group of first-year students overseas in the second semester this year to gain knowledge about issues like integration and collaboration.”

At the occasion Prof. Jansen announced that bursaries to study at the UFS in 2011 would be awarded to the two top Grade 12 learners of the school.

The Secondary School Witteberg had a 100% pass rate in the Grade 12 final examinations the past few years. In 2009 the school was seventh amongst the top 50 schools in the Free State Province. Five learners from the school were also amongst the top 20 learners in the Province last year. The school has already produced many top students for the UFS.

Mediaverklaring
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (acting)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za  
18 March 2010
 

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